A school threatened with closure is the most improved comprehensive in the England, today's league tables show.

Perry Beeches school in inner-city Birmingham has seen the proportion of its pupils with at least five A*-C grades at GCSE, including English and maths, jump from 21% in 2007 to 74% this summer.

The rise of 53 percentage points over four years is thought to be a national record.

In September 2007, inspectors warned that the 895-pupil school, which is mixed and takes pupils aged between 11 and 16, would have to close unless results improved.

Ofsted placed the school in "special measures", an emergency category. However, inspectors recognised that the school had the potential to improve and said they would visit again in a year.

At the time, just 30% of pupils were achieving five GCSEs at grades C or above, not including English and maths.

Five months previously, in April 2007, a new headteacher had been appointed. Liam Nolan, who had never been a headteacher before, had dramatic plans to turn around the school.

He boosted teachers' morale by providing free tea, coffee and toast in the staff room and introduced rules that meant pupils would have to go home unless they wore the correct uniform.

He gave students prizes and rewards, such as vouchers, stationery and trips, when they performed well and improved their attendance record.

Overall, pupil attendance has shot up from 86% in 2007 to 96% last year. The number of pupils permanently excluded from school has dropped from 15 students in 2007 to none over the last two years.

Some 40% of Perry Beeches pupils are on free school meals – a key indicator of poverty – and 10% do not speak English as their first language. Just under a third of pupils are of black Caribbean origin, while another 30% are of Pakistani or Indian origin.

Nolan, 43, said he did not need to replace teachers to transform the school. "We had excellent teachers already, they were just being overlooked," he said. "Teachers were demoralised. Everyone saw this school as a dumping ground. It was an unloved school with low expectations."

But to turn the school around, Nolan said he had to spend more. The school went into a deficit of half a million pounds in 2008 and is still paying back its debt. "To turn the tanker around, we had to put in more," Nolan said.

He said that inspectors had helped the school by telling its teachers that it would close unless it improved. "It spurs you on," he said. "If schools are not working then inspectors should say so. Schools are a public service."